With two years to go until our centenary, we have begun a series of
retrospective pieces to highlight changes in the journal and the
profession at large. We have called it 'Hand Made History' to
reflect the importance of our manual skills in managing people's
health problems, but also as a pun directed at our historical status as
'handmaidens' to medicine.

In this first piece we have taken two brief articles from the
November journal of 1960. Published exactly 50 years ago, the articles
are noteworthy for (at least) three reasons: firstly, they reflect the
fact that in 1960 the journal was still highly dependent on doctors to
provide authoritative content. Any writing on the anatomy, diagnosis or
pathology of a problem came from a doctor. In the case of the first
article on 'Low Back Strain' the author is Allan Macdonald,
notable orthopaedic surgeon in Auckland in the 1960s (see BMJ, 1961; 1;
813 for an article on the New Zealand branch of the BMA written by Mr
Macdonald). Secondly, the accompanying article by Ian Tayler on
'Back Management' was published just before Stanley Paris left
New Zealand on a Workers Compensation Board Spinal Research Grant to
find out how spinal injuries were being treated in Europe and America.
The early seeds of the revolution in spinal manipulation that would
dominate New Zealand's recent physiotherapy history were being sown
in New Zealand by pioneers like Robin McKenzie, Brian Mulligan, Ian
Searle, Craig Cameron and Michael Monaghan and the NZMTA and IFOMT were,
as yet, unformed. Thirdly, and most poignantly, the article reminds us
of the recent death of Ian Tayler, whose obituary was published in
Physio Matters (2010; September; 22).

Ian was a remarkable therapist. As one of the first of a cohort of
returned servicemen to enter physiotherapy training in Dunedin after the
war, Ian had experienced terrible privation. Held in German and Italian
prisoner-of-war camp for four years, he was, by his own admission,
physically and mentally broken. But spending time around young people
again, and most especially learning how to heal other people helped him
heal himself. Ian's empathy for other people's suffering, and
the importance of education and empowerment come through strongly in his
paper.

We will be publishing further historical articles and notable
content over the course of the next two years. We hope you enjoy these
papers which will give some people pause for reflection, and others
reminiscences of times gone by but not forgotten.